REU Biomath

Faculty

Dr. Andrew Palmer

Dr. Palmer has displayed a solid commitment to both undergraduate as well as K-12 science education efforts in the classroom and laboratory. As a graduate student he was recognized as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Teacher-Scholar for his participation in the ORDER (On Recent Discoveries by Emory Researchers) program. The goal of ORDER is to encourage undergraduates to pursue graduate STEM degrees through a semester-long seminar series on the research process (the scientific method) across multiple STEM fields. As a graduate student, postdoctoral fellow, and now assistant professor, he has directly mentored both graduate (4 total), undergraduate (11 total), and high school students (2 total) in lab techniques and the process of scientific discovery. Many of these efforts are, or already have, resulted in publications in peer-reviewed literature. The opportunity to participate in the summer REU BioMath program at FIT would provide an excellent vehicle for him to continue his support for interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching/research opportunities.

Dr. Christin Pruett

Dr. Pruett has mentored 6 students through the undergraduate research program at FIT since she arrived in 2008. These students have worked on a suite of projects involving population genetics and field ecology. She published 2 manuscripts with students as co-authors in peer-reviewed journals such as Conservation Genetics. Students have also given poster presentations at scientific conferences such as the Cooper Ornithological Society Meeting in Tucson, AZ. Three of these students have gone on to graduate school in biology and two are currently working in Dr. Pruett’s lab. Dr. Pruett attended the 5th and 6th Annual Florida Statewide Symposium (2011, 2012) on “Engagement in Undergraduate Research” and received mentorship training through these opportunities.

Dr. David Carroll

David Carroll has been at Florida Tech for fourteen years. Prior to this, he was an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he supervised undergraduates in a lab that had a strong commitment to undergraduate and graduate research. In his current position, Dr. Carroll teaches undergraduate and graduate courses that employ mathematics as an important tool for understanding biological processes. These courses include Genetics, Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, and Bioinformatics. Dr. Carroll also runs a research lab that includes undergraduate scientists as major contributors. Dr. Carroll has published 18 peer-reviewed articles, four of which have included undergraduate authors. Undergraduates from his laboratory have presented talks or posters at multiple meetings, including the Tri-Beta Biological Honor society annual meeting, the Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research fellowship fall meeting, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting, the American Society for Cell Biology Annual meeting, and at the annual meeting of the American Mathematical Society. At Florida Tech, Dr. Carroll has supervised 34 undergraduate researchers in his laboratory. A majority of these students have gone on to attend graduate school in various disciplines. Others are working as research technicians in biological laboratories, or attending medical school. Dr. Carroll is dedicated to running a successful research laboratory that incorporates undergraduates. Four of his publications are cited in the leading Developmental Biology textbook (Gilbert, S., 2013, Developmental Biology, 10th edition, Sinauer Associates) and two of those have undergraduate co-authors. The fact that their work might appear in a 'real' textbook is a great motivating factor for some undergraduates.

Dr. Jewgeni Dshalalow

Dr. Dshalalow mentored five undergraduate students through FIT senior research program (FIT code MTH 4990) during the UBM sponsored program from 2009 to 2011. The topic of the research was “The determination of mutation rates in samples of e. coli bacteria.” Four of the five students co-authored one published paper, "An unbiased and consistent estimator for mutation rates" (appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 300 (2012), 360-367). The student research was supervised by Dr. Dshalalow and Dr. Richard Sinden (of biological sciences). It included lab experiments and stochastic simulation (that fully validated the theoretical results and showed a very rapid convergence of the proposed stochastic estimator). Dr. Dshalalow also developed and taught the undergraduate course biostochastics (MTH 3993/BIO 3993) twice during the UBM sponsored program.

Dr. Jian Du

Dr. Du has served as the instructor for Numerical Analysis and for Models in Applied Mathematics, both of which are for undergraduates, at Florida Tech. He is currently working with one undergraduate student on a project involving the mechanics of snake slithering. He has mentored one high school student on an interdisciplinary research project on peristaltic pumping of biofluid with immersed particles. The high school student won the 1st Place in Physics and Best of Show in Physical Sciences at the Brevard Regional Science & Engineering Fair (February 2013). He participated at Orlando Science Challenge (March 2013, Orlando, FL) and received 4th Place Physics Award at Florida State Science & Engineering Fair (March 2013, Lakeland, FL). The student was also invited to attend the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (May 2013, Phoenix, AZ).

Dr. Lisa Moore

Dr. Moore joined FIT in 1999 and has been actively involved with the training and mentoring of undergraduate researchers since joining the department. All of the undergraduate researchers mentored (12) have spent 2 - 3 semesters in the lab. Several students have continued as graduate students in her laboratory after completion of their undergraduate degree. Of the twelve undergraduate researchers mentored, three have gone on to graduate programs elsewhere, four are currently in medical school, one is in a physician assistant program, one is currently working towards his Masters in Biotechnology in the lab and two became research assistants in labs at other institutions (one was re-applying to veterinarian school, outcome unknown). All of the students participated in presenting their research at a number of local and national meetings. One paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal with the undergraduate researcher as the first author, numerous abstracts have been published with these researchers as first author at poster sessions for meetings in our area of research. Two have been received the top poster award at Tri-Beta regional Biological Society meetings. One won the top presentation award at the Tri-Beta National meeting. In addition, all students have been encouraged to present their work in the lab annually at the Florida Tech Research symposium and 4 students have received the top award for best presentation recently. Dr. Moore has also mentored several middle school students in her lab who have won merit awards for regional science fair projects.

Dr. Munevver Subasi

Dr. Subasi joined the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Tech in August 2010. Her research interests include optimization and stochastic programming with applications to finance and large-scale data analysis with applications to medicine and biology. She is actively involved in collaborations with the Biology Department at Florida Tech, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Rutgers Center for Operations Research, Georgetown University Medical Center, and Cancer Institute of New Jersey. She has started, and is faculty advisor for, a Florida Tech Chapter of SIAM. Within the last three years, Dr. Subasi has mentored five undergraduate students including two female and two male African American students majoring in Applied Math program. Her undergraduate research students participated at Florida Tech's Annual Undergraduate Research Showcase and Undergraduate Math Conference hosted by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL in April 2011, 2012 and 2013. One of Dr. Subasi's undergrad students was chosen to participate at 27th National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR 2013). Two of her students received the President's Award for undergraduate research in the College of Science in April 2012 and 2013. Her students shared the Best in Fair Award in April 2013. One of Dr. Subasi's undergraduate research students has received dual M.S. degrees in Operations Research and Systems Engineering at Florida Tech. Another student is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Operations Research program. Dr. Subasi teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses, including Probability and Statistics, Introduction to Optimization, Stochastic Models in Operations Research, and Combinatorics and Graph Theory. She has also developed Computational Methods in Operations Research course. Dr. Subasi embraces research as an integral part of her professional development. She has authored 10 publications containing theory with applications in STEM and has several papers under review. Dr. Subasi supervised a Ph.D. student, Juan Felix Avila Herrera, who received his Ph.D. degree in May 2013 and joined the University of Costa Rica as a faculty member. Currently, Dr. Subasi is supervising two Ph.D. student and two M.S. thesis student.

Dr. Nezamoddin Nezamoddini-Kachouie

Dr. Nezamoddini-Kachouie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology. With degrees in electrical & computer engineering and systems design engineering, he spent four years at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health to work in multidisciplinary research environments where he gained successful experience to address interdisciplinary problems in engineering, medicine, and biology. His research interest lies at the interface of pattern recognition, digital signal and image processing, biostatistics, and computer vision with applications to cancer research, stem cell studies, and public health. He has strong experience in software system design and he has developed image analysis systems for different applications including stem cell detection, segmentation, and tracking, genomic data analysis for detection of regional DNA copy number alterations, and voxel-wise anatomical & functional analysis of brain tissue through MRI and PET images. He has been actively involved with undergraduate and graduate research and mentorship where he has served as group leader of high-throughput analysis group, chair of IEEE engineering in Medicine and Biology chapter of Kitchener-Waterloo section, and lead organizer of Biomedical Imaging and Computer Vision (BICV) symposium. He has served as mentor and adviser for undergrad and grad students at Harvard and FIT. Two of the masters students working with him at Harvard, were admitted for PhD at McGill University and UCLA. Dr. Nezamoddini-Kachouie joined FIT in Aug 2012 and he has been working with undergrad and grad students to perform research. His undergrad African American student’s abstract was accepted and his student presented his research at NCUR (National Conf. on Undergraduate Research) in 2013. Currently, one MS and two PhD candidates are performing research under his supervision. He has designed and taught Applied Statistical Analysis for grad students at FIT and he is designing grad level Regression Analysis course.